Tuberculosis (TB), caused by bacillus Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the main infectious disease in the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that approximately 8 million of new cases are reported each year and 2 million deaths are caused by this disease. In addition, one-third of the world's population has latent M. tuberculosis infection, mostly in underdeveloped countries.
TB control basically consists of treating subjects diagnosed with TB with a combination of drugs, usually isoniazid (INH), rifampicin (RMP), pyrazinamide (PZA), and ethambutol (E), which are considered first-line drugs.
In Brazil, it is estimated that more than 50 million people are infected by the TB bacillus, and in the states of Rio de Janeiro and Amazonas the incidence rates of the disease are alarming, with figures comparable to those of India and African countries. Approximately 100 thousand new cases and 5 to 6 thousand deaths as a result of the disease are reported per year.
There is an urgent need for the development of new drugs for TB treatment, since TB first-line chemotherapy consists of drugs that were developed over 40 years ago. Due to the appearance of strains resistant to multiple chemotherapeutic agents, combined with HIV co-infection, in 1993 TB was declared as a “Global Emergency” by the WHO.
Isoniazid (INH), a prodrug inhibitor of mycolic acid synthesis, is a first choice drug for the treatment of TB because it exhibits good tolerability allied to a high antimycobacterial activity, besides being cheap. Its activation depends on the enzyme catalase-peroxidase (KatG) of M. tuberculosis in a hydrogen peroxide-dependent process involving the formation of the corresponding acyl radical and subsequent reaction with nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) generating the INH-NAD adduct that inhibits the InhA enzyme involved in the synthesis of mycolic acid, constituent of the cell wall of the bacillus. 
Two aspects are very important in the INH potency: bioavailability and lipophilic character. The importance of the lipophilicity of a compound is associated with the diffusion phenomena across the cell wall of the bacillus. More lipophilic compounds exhibit greater diffusion through the lipid domain, thereby increasing drug intracellular concentrations. High bioavailability, especially with high peak concentrations shortly after drug administration, increases treatment efficacy and prevents the development of INH resistance.
INH acetylation process is critical in patients of the “rapid acetylators” type, who have a higher activity of the NAT enzyme, through mutations thereof, and in this case the use of INH is not very effective, since it is converted faster to its metabolite of low activity (Selkon, J., Fox, W., Gangadharam, P., Ramachandran, K., Ramakrishnan, C., and Veiu, S., Bull. W.H.O., 1961, 25, 779.). Moreover, N-acetylation may be related to mycobacterial resistance to INH in strains that overexpress the NAT enzyme (Payton, M., Auty, R., Delgoda, R., Everett, M., and Sim, E., J. Bacteriol., 1999, 181, 1343.).
The prior art “Synthesis and antisecretory and antiulcerogenic activity of N-(2-acylaminophenyl)glyoxalyl-N′-acylhydrazines and N-(2-benzoylaminophenyl)glyoxalylamides. Catto, A.; Cappeiletti, R.; Leonardi, A.; Tajana, A.; Maggi, F.; Nardi, D.; Taddei, F, Div. Ric, Recordati S.p.A., Milan, Italy. Farmaco, Edizione Scientifica (1983), 38(1), 45-56, describes novel hydrazide compounds of similar formula, but not equal to I, however with a different production methodology. However, the authors of this scientific paper have not evaluated the compounds against Mycobacterium tuberculosis, especially compound II, whose structure most resembles that of I. It is noteworthy that the compound of formula I cannot be produced from II or vice-versa.
The product obtained in Catto A. et al.'s reference is compound 4

In order to compare the activity of substance II to the ones contained in formula I of this invention, we synthesized compound 4 and tested it against M. tuberculosis. Compound 4 did not show good activity and the results are shown in Table 1 and described in Examples 3 and 4
Hence, considering the high levels of resistance of the microorganism to the drugs conventionally used in the treatment of tuberculosis, especially isoniazid (INH), there is an urgent need for the development of new drugs useful in TB treatment.